I have to say, I really like Texas. Though I’ve never lived there, and my opinion might be different if I had, I’ve visited Texas more than a handful of times now. Each time has been a wonderful experience, whether it was a fly-in/fly-out one-day consultation in Dallas, two weeks on-site in Fort Worth, or a spontaneous roadtrip from Florida to El Paso. The big-smile-hospitality and come-on-in attitude of Texas has never disappointed me.
Down there, they even know how to drive well—trust me on this, I’ve driven in 42 of the United States, several Canadian provinces, parts of Mexico, and through most major North American cities. Texans in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in particular drive well.
They speed—as a rule, not as an exception—and those who don’t speed (tourists) are quickly ostracized to the outside lane. Texans, though, know how to speed; they don’t rush and stop, rush and stop. Rather, everyone speeds uniformly within his lane. There’s a speed limit+10 lane, a speed limit+20 lane, and the holy-crap-I’m-late-for-work lane.
Cars sold in Texas don’t come equipped with turn signals, but Texas drivers are redeemed by their other qualities. They know, for example, the ancient Aztec secret of Highway Merging, and they practice it religiously. In Philadelphia, cars often sit stopped at onramps for several minutes before they find the space to muscle into the flow of traffic. When one is trying to turn left across a highway, Texans will stop and wave one through—in Boston, such heresy would be met with the cacophany of angry horns and shouted obscenities. In New Jersey, you’d be killed for it and your car stripped while you lay dying in it.
In Texas, one won’t be shot for anything less than stealing a man’s horse, dog, boat, or wife (in that order of importance). Avoid those activities, and Texans will treat a guest with absolutely hospitality.
This latest trip to Texas—to Fort Worth, specifically—is a return trip to teach the wonderful (and talented) design staff of Lockheed-Martin. Which means I also get the opportunity to be (happliy) buzzed by low-flying F-16s punching their afterburners 75 feet above the ground to set off a parking lot full of car alarms. Hopefully, I will also have the chance to tour the F-16 production plant again—a mile long stretch of factory that starts one end with giant blocks of raw steel and aluminum and ends with painted, ready-to-fly airplanes.
I’m also looking forward to some good barbeque. And, of course, being able to feel relatively safe on I-30 at 85 MPH.
